Bloomberg New Energy Finance forecasts the global energy storage market will “double six times” by 2030, growing from less than 5 gigawatt-hours in 2016 to more than 300 gigawatt-hours. An estimated $103 billion will be invested in energy storage over that time period. All of those numbers mean a big opportunity for solar, which is why NEXTracker is broadening its approach to large-scale PV deployment by adding an Energy Storage Solutions portfolio of products alongside its decentralized tracker system.

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The storage solutions include NX Drive, a standardized battery enclosure system for generation-plus-storage or stand-alone storage applications, and NX Flow, a modular, integrated solution designed for long duration solar-plus-storage applications. Each is designed to maximize long-term value and offer the lowest levelized cost of storage (LCOS) for a wide variety of applications, such as peak smoothing, bulk load shifting and demand charge reduction.

Inside NX Flow

NX Flow’s complete storage solution (formerly known as NX Fusion Plus) integrates battery, inverter, solar tracker and software technologies to improve return on investment for owners of solar power plants. At the core of the system lies an advanced vanadium flow battery (VFB), which is DC-coupled with the photovoltaic (PV) array for high round-trip efficiency. With NX Flow, the battery charges directly off the array, enabling the battery to capture “clipped” energy up to its storage capacity limit. Energy that has been lost to clipping can now be captured and used to generate additional kilowatt-hours revenue. Pairing NX Flow VFB technology with ground-mounted solar power offers a bankable long duration storage option for project developers and asset owners.